Reed (Nano Wolves #4) - Donna McDonald Page 0,1
Wolf form. And he had to inform his children—Travis’s parents—that their errant son was at last dead.
Seeing to the comfort of the Russian she-wolf was not high on his list of tasks.
“Keep eyes on road, Temptation,” Katarina ordered, as she pointed out the windshield. “You drive on mud and grass more than pavement.”
“I told you why the roads are such a mess this time of year. Do you want to drive?” Reed demanded, bristling at her criticism.
Katarina shook her head and refused to look up at him. It was one of her many actions that irritated him for no good reason.
“Me drive? Nyet, comrade. I do not have ability, but even non-driving wolf knows to stay on pavement.”
Yana leaned forward and turned to smile at Reed. “How much longer until we get to your village?”
Not wanting to dwell on Katarina’s lack of politeness, Reed turned his attention to the truck’s windshield and shrugged. “We should be there in another thirty or forty minutes if the truck survives. Sorry not to be more precise. I tend to ignore the passage of time.”
Yana smiled and leaned back. “This trip has taught me that Katarina does not travel well. I will keep my fierce alpha sister from attacking as best I can.”
Beside him, Katarina snorted at Yana’s comment, which had Reed looking down at the top of her head. Attacking? Like attacking him? He felt no fierce vibe from her. The petite Russian alpha appeared to be calm. “Is something the matter, Katarina?”
Katarina chuckled at the question. “No, nothing is wrong, Temptation. Yana is full of words that tend to float away when she speaks.”
Reed wanted to laugh at Katarina’s sarcasm, but that would only make things worse. He didn’t know whether Katarina suffered from the same physical awareness he did, so Reed decided talking would pass the time more quickly for the last jaunt of their trip. “My village built a lodge for visiting packs many years ago—back when entire packs migrated out of the more frozen areas every winter for survival reasons. The lodge sleeps over thirty wolves in human form. I admit it’s fairly spartan in terms of amenities, but I thought the two of you could stay there until I can come up with better arrangements.”
Reed jerked the wheel too hard when Katarina put her hand on his knee and squeezed.
“You worry too much, Temptation. Yana and I are grateful to visit Alaskan home of the great Nicolai Vashchenko. We would sleep on ground in our wolf forms to do so.”
“If you want to get there safely, get your hand off my leg,” Reed ordered.
Katarina grinned as she squeezed his knee again. “Am I temptation for the mighty Black Wolf alpha?”
Reed grunted at the question. “Da,” he answered snarkily in Russian.
When a grinning Katarina showed no sign of moving her hand away, Reed used one of his hands to pry her gripping fingers off his knee. He wasn’t sure what to think when she and Yana both laughed at his defensive action. They teased each other non-stop but had mostly left him out of the loop of their joking around—at least, they had until now.
Both of them had a lot to learn about him. Honesty was in his sexual programming. Teasing was not. “Hear my words, Katarina Volkov. You may think the chemistry between us is a joke, but I don’t.”
Katarina waved the hand Reed had shoved off his leg. “Bah… chemistry always big joke. That is life.”
As they crested a hill in the road, their attention left the truck and each other as they peered at a pillar of black smoke rising above the trees and curling high into the sky some distance ahead.
Yana rolled down the window and sniffed. “I smell burning, but more than to heat a home. This is smoke from a serious fire. Maybe forests?”
“Not likely. The forests are still winter wet and we’re in our rainy season,” Reed answered as his gaze took in the rolling black plumes. “That’s a dry smoke.”
“You think your village on fire?” Katarina asked, leaning forward to stare at the smoke.
“Maybe,” Reed answered quietly as he stomped his foot to the pedal. “Hang on. This could get real bumpy.”
The last fifteen minutes of their drive was rough on all of them. What greeted them in the village was chaos.
Strangers dressed in dark military clothes were running from angry werewolves. Many were carrying auto-weapons, but only those with tranquilizer guns shot at Reed’s people.
Without a word, Reed slid out